The Great Stone of Sardis

by Frank R. Stockton

But not long before Mr. Gibbs told the captain that he might go whaling if he felt like it, the old sailor had experienced a change of mind. He had become a most ardent student of whales. In his very circumscribed experience when a young man he had seen whales, but they had generally been a long way off; and as the old-fashioned method of rowing after them in boats had even then been abandoned in favor of killing them by means of the rifled cannon, Captain Hubbell had not seen very much of these creatures until they had been towed alongside. But now he could study whales at his leisure. It was seldom that he had to wait very long before he would see one near enough for him to examine it with a glass, and he never failed to avail himself of such opportunities.

The consequence of this constant and careful inspection was the conclusion in Captain Hubbell's mind that there was only one whale in the polar sea. He had noticed, and others had noticed, that they never saw two at once, and the captain had used his glass so often and so well that one morning he stamped his foot upon the deck and said to Sammy:

“I believe that's the same whale over and over and over ag'in. I know him like a book; he has his ways and his manners, and it isn't reasonable to suppose that every whale has the same ways and manners. He comes just so near the vessel, and then he stops and blows. Then he suns his back for a while, and then he throws up his flukes and sounds. He does that as regular as if he was a polar clock. I know the very shape of his flukes; and two or three days ago, as he was soundin', I thought that the tip of the upper one looked as if it had been damaged—as if he had broken it floppin' about in some tight place; and ever since, when I have seen a whale, I have looked for the tip of that upper fluke, and there's that same old break. Every time I have looked I have found it. It can't be that there are a lot o' whales in here and each one of 'em with a battered fluke.”

“That does look sort o' queer,” said Sammy, reflectively.

“Sammy Block,” said Captain Jim, impressively, “it's my opinion that there's only one whale in this here polar sea; an', more than that, it's my opinion that there's only one whale in this world, an' that that feller we've seen is the one! Samuel Block, he's the last whale in the whole world! Now you know that I wanted to go a-whalin'—that's natural enough—but since Mr. Gibbs has got through, and has said that I could take this vessel an' go a-whalin' if I wanted to—which would be easy enough, for we have got guns aboard which would kill any right-whale—I don't want to go. I don't want to lay on my dyin' bed an' think that I'm the man that killed the last whale in the world. I'm commandin' this vessel, and I sail it wherever Mr. Gibbs tells me to sail it; but if he wants the bones of a whale to take home as a curiosity, an' tells me to sail this vessel after that whale, I won't do it.”

“I'm with you there,” said Sammy. “I have been thinkin' while you was talkin', an' it's my opinion that it's not only the last whale in the world, but it's purty nigh tame. I believe it's so glad to see some other movin' creature in this lonely sea that it wants to keep company with us all the time. No, sir, I wouldn't have anything to do with killin' that fish!”

The opinions of the captain and Sammy were now communicated to the rest of the company on board, and nearly all of them thought that they had had such an idea themselves. The whale certainly looked very familiar every time he showed himself.

To Mr. Gibbs this lonely creature, if he were such, now became an object of intense interest. It was evidently a specimen of the right-whale, once common in the Northern seas, skeletons of which could be seen in many museums. Nothing would be gained to science by his capture, and Mr. Gibbs agreed with the others that it would be a pity to harm this, the last of his race.

In thinking and talking over the matter Mr. Gibbs formed a theory which he thought would explain the presence of this solitary whale in the polar sea. He thought it very likely that it had gotten under the ice and had pursued its northern journey very much as the Dipsey had pursued hers, and had at last emerged, as she had, into the polar sea at a place perhaps as shallow as that where the submarine vessel came out from under the ice.

“And if that's the case,” said Captain Hubbell, “it is ten to one that he has not been able to get out again, and has found himself here caught just as if he was in a trap. Fishes don't like to swim into tight places. They may do it once, but they don't want to do it again. It is this disposition that makes 'em easy to catch in traps. I believe you are right, Mr. Gibbs. I believe this whale has got in here and can't get out—or, at least, he thinks he can't—and nobody knows how long it's been since he first got in. It may have been a hundred years ago. There's plenty o' little fish in these waters for him to eat, and he's the only one there is to feed.”